How To Set Up Regular Bills When You Move

Moving can be a stressful time. Actually scrap that, it is a stressful time. There’s so much to sort out, especially if you’re buying. While there aren’t too many people moving at the moment, it’s still happening. We picked up the keys to our house a day into lockdown. But we’re in a pretty privileged position where we’re not moving in yet. We have a few months of renovation work before that can happen. But we still had to think about how to set up regular bills when you move. As although we weren’t technically living there, we still had things to pay.

A lot of your utilities etc will proactively reach out to you, but for som,e it may take a while. Getting things set up is always one of the first things on my list. It’s something you can forget about while you’re renovating/ decorating/ unpacking etc. Here are some tips on how to set up your regular bills when you move so it doesn’t cause you too much of a headache.

Register for your council tax

The very first thing I did when we moved was to set up our council tax. It’s quite a pricey monthly spend, second only to our mortgage. And I didn’t want to end up being a month behind and owing more per month. If you visit your local council’s website you’ll find a form to fill in to set it up. You’ll need to find in a selection of information around when you moved in and if you have a forwarding address for the previous owners.

I did this at the same time as adding us to the electoral role, killing two birds with one stone. To set up regular bills when you move for your council tax can make things much easier when you pay by direct debit. A few weeks after we filled it in we got our payment breakdown in the post ready to pay the next month. So even then there was about 5/6 weeks between moving in and making our first payment.

Set up regular bills when you move for your electricity and gas suppliers

It should be pretty easy to find out your electricity and gas suppliers so you know who to contact. But if you’re not sure you can click here to find out your gas supplier. And for electricity, you can contact your region Distribution Network Operator to find out who your electricity is provided by. You can grab your local number from Simply Switch here. We knew we wanted to go with Octopus Energy and thankfully for us that’s who already supplied our property. So we didn’t even need to worry about switching then or further down the line.

What’s important to do to begin with is take photos of your metre readings as soon as you move in. This means you’ll know exactly how much electricity/ gas you’re using and what the previous owners owe. Once you know your provider you can head to their website to set up regular bills when you move. Suppliers will have a section for if you’ve just moved into the property and you can submit your metre reading and set up a direct debit straight away. By setting up a direct debit you won’t be suddenly hit with a big bill in 3-4 months. You can always amend the direct debit price once you’ve had that first bill.

Set up your water direct debit

One of the providers you can’t switch is your water provider. So you can check out your supplier through Water.org and see who you need to contact. There are plenty of options like being on a metre or paying a set price per month and I won’t begin to be an expert in it.

Again make sure you take an image of your metre (if you have one) and head to the water suppliers website to set up for a direct debit. They’ll be able to show you what type of payment plan you’ll be on to begin with.

Set up regular bills when you move: TV license

This is one of those stupid little bills that most people forget. If you watch live TV or stream anything then you need a TV license. You can backdate them so if you forget it’s not a problem but it’s something easy to do. Setting up a direct debit you’ll pay around £11 a month which you won’t even notice. But if you end up having to pay a full year you’ll have to pay over £100.

I’ve declared online why we don’t have a license as the property isn’t being lived in yet. This way they’ll know why we haven’t applied for one. But it’s something you’ll want to do when you move.

Move your existing broadband or set up a new one

If you’re moving from another property you should be able to bring over your existing broadband as long as the provider supplies to your new address. This will be by far the easiest option as you won’t need to set up a new account. But if this isn’t possible, or you’re moving from a property where you didn’t pay for the broadband (like us) then you’ll need to set it up.

We’ve held off on this because we’re not going to be in the property to use WiFi. But if we were this would have been my first priority.

What are your tips to set up regular bills when you move?